So as I said in the previous entry, we went to Mouraria, but before we went by underground to Baixa, and just loved it. I love to go sight seeing in abroad, but because I live in Lisbon I guess I never thought I needed to do it. Well I was wrong. I loved every thing in Baixa, the little shops, the houses architecture, and the statues. Oh god if I loved the statues, especially the statue of D. Pedro IV. It reminded me of when I went to London and I walked London's Center, I loved Nelson's Column and I loved The Mall's statues.
Then as we walked in Lisbon the picture changed, as we passed by Martim Moniz we could see all the different cultures that live in Lisbon, and as we walked by an underground tunnel with shops, we could only see asian people, indian people or black people at those stores. I almost felt like I was where I didn't belong, and we walked out by C. C. da Mouraria, which is a shoping center, and the stores kept going, it was huge! I have to say it was spectacular to see all those people, people who came to our country in search of a better life, absolutely astonishing.
Then we walked by the nearby neighborhoods and we could see that the houses were nothing like the houses in Baixa. They were poorer, however the people who lived there didn't care. We met the queen of Mouraria, an old lady who was sitting on a bench.Sshe had a great humor and took pictures with some of us. I really liked to know this part of Lisbon and I'm eager to go on the next field trip.
Nov 17, 2010
LJ Entry #3 - Hungarian students and Malcolm X
Haven't done this in a while... So a in the past few weeks (quite a few actually) we prepared a field trip to the Mouraria and went there in the previous thursday, but I'll talk about that in the next LJ Entry.
Before all that we received a group of students from Hungary and we decided it would be a nice thing if we spoke in different languages to the hungarians, like portuguese, spanish, french (they had no clue what we were talking about, only by context) and german (they understood some words...), and they talked a bit of hungarian too (I didn't understood one word besides Lisbon). And then I was going to translate what our class told in all those languages to english, which wasn't very difficult, all speeches were simple, welcome, we wish you have a great time, bla, bla, bla... but because I was going to be the only one who would be speaking in english, and because they would only understand my language, I was going to start with “And during the few moments that we have left, we want to talk, right down to earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand.”. While I was practising this sentence outside someone told me "You will sound stupid." and I asked if he knew who Malcolm X was, he answered no. I asked more people the same quetions and they answared the same response. Then I thought I may sound stupid if people don't get the reference. Insted I end up saying "Now I'll speak in English and everyone here should understand me" and people laughed... But after that I was thinking "maybe I should make a short presentation about Malcolm X to give this people a bit of culture" and since I have to give one presentation solo I might do it soon.
Now back to the hungarians, since that day I've never seen them again and had no clue where they were while they stayed in Portugal, oh well...
Before all that we received a group of students from Hungary and we decided it would be a nice thing if we spoke in different languages to the hungarians, like portuguese, spanish, french (they had no clue what we were talking about, only by context) and german (they understood some words...), and they talked a bit of hungarian too (I didn't understood one word besides Lisbon). And then I was going to translate what our class told in all those languages to english, which wasn't very difficult, all speeches were simple, welcome, we wish you have a great time, bla, bla, bla... but because I was going to be the only one who would be speaking in english, and because they would only understand my language, I was going to start with “And during the few moments that we have left, we want to talk, right down to earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand.”. While I was practising this sentence outside someone told me "You will sound stupid." and I asked if he knew who Malcolm X was, he answered no. I asked more people the same quetions and they answared the same response. Then I thought I may sound stupid if people don't get the reference. Insted I end up saying "Now I'll speak in English and everyone here should understand me" and people laughed... But after that I was thinking "maybe I should make a short presentation about Malcolm X to give this people a bit of culture" and since I have to give one presentation solo I might do it soon.
Now back to the hungarians, since that day I've never seen them again and had no clue where they were while they stayed in Portugal, oh well...
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